Some new product suggestions

colt

New member
First of All...
I am thrilled to find your site!
I'm an ITX enthusiast and some of my project ideas have needed integrated input controls (like on the 633) while others have needed a way to communicate with the user (like your entire product line). Up till now, I've get a project down on paper, then abandon it because I can't justify the cost of a touchscreen lcd monitor which adds $700 to the project. Your components are going to resurrect several of my abandoned projects. Thanks!

Now for the new product suggestions...

Your 633 product has several soft plastic input buttons which I assume can send signals down the serial cable to become input for a computer program. Please consider offering sets of these buttons without the lcd. A 12 button keypad and a full keyboard would be excellent. Small buttons would be the key feature for me, since I have to fit them on the 7x7 inch top of my itx enclosure.

A 4 x 20 serial lcd with the 633 buttons would also be great since a simple tree (like the windows outline control) can be drawn in a 4 x 20 character matrix. Imagine an mp3 player with 60gigs of songs on file. Scrolling two lines at a time will get old quick. On that subject, how about larger character matrices. Anybody remember ms-dos's 25x40 and 25x80 modes. I'd be estatic over an 8 x 20 serial lcd with buttons, but the uses for larger sets of characters is incredible.

The rest of my ideas are a bit of a departure from your current product line, but might appeal to you because they will appeal to the kinds of people who come to see your serial and usb panels. I would love to find switches, dials and keylocks which report their state to the computer via a standard serial or usb port. Gauges and led's which get their values from a serial or usb port would also be cool. Of course to make use of more than a few of these in a single project, some way of sharin the computer's limited number of serial or usb ports across dozens of these controls would be needed.

Ok, I've daydreamed enough for now.
Please put me on your new product announcement email list.

Thanks,
Colt Taylor
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Beequewl

New member
I too am dreaming of a small keyboard that can interface with a PC connected to a character LCD module. I have been looking for said keyboard to no avail...if anyone has any suggestions? Crystalfontz would be able to sell more than a few im sure as the PC modding community seems to be headed in the "stand-alone-A/V-machine" direction at a speed hitherto not thought of...

A simple keypad, such as a numpad (HINT, HINT) would be able to control a multitude of functions and keep the clean look of your machine...and whille such keypads exist for $80US and up, i think its time for a good company (HINT, HINT) to make an affordable one. Keyboards that do 100's of more things are available at your local computer store for less than 10 bucks...one would think a simple numpad or some-such would be much cheaper (??)

So...here's hoping someone "in the loop," as it were, reads this post and answers my prayers.... :D
 
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Beequewl

New member
About 5" too wide... im more looking for something that can be hidden behind a 5 1/4 bay, on rails that would slide out...kinda like an LCD mod i saw somewhere online (you know the one, the 5" color LCD that slides out of the bay on metal rails, i know im not the only one to have seen that one)
i have almost given up on this since i have finished the machine it was going to go into...

id attach pics (im very impressed with myself, it came out much better than anything my clumsy hands should have created) but the digi-cam isnt working **** those drivers!!!!:mad:
 
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WillGonz

New member
Too bad you couldn't adapt a PDA keyboard to work with your PC. Then you could do just as you are saying.

WillGonz
 

Beequewl

New member
All of these suggestions (espescially the pda one) are great except for one thing...

cost of full size keyboard at local comp store : $15 US or less

cost of any other kind of keyboard / keypad / programmable keypad board etc : $60 and up

this is my problem : there is no reason they should be as much as they are and i was just making a comment that someone should start making one with a reasonable price. i mean i saw just the numerical keypad onlinbe for $80 US!!!! its ridiculous...


i dunno maybe when i wake up ill be able to formulate a better response
 
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